xix, 286 pages ; 23 cm

"When After Virtue first appeared in 1981, it was recognized as a significant and potentially controversial critique of contemporary moral philosophy. Newsweek called it "a stunning new study of ethics by one of the foremost moral philosophers in the English-speaking world." Now, twenty-five years later, the University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to release the third edition of After Virtue, which includes a new prologue "After Virtue after a Quarter of a Century."" "In this classic work, Alasdair MacIntyre examines the historical and conceptual roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in personal and public life, and offers a tentative proposal for its recovery. While the individual chapters are wide-ranging, once pieced together they comprise a penetrating and focused argument about the price of modernity."--Jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-281) and index

A disquieting suggestion -- The nature of moral disagreement today and the claims of emotivism -- Emotivism: social content and social context -- The predecessor culture and the Enlightenment project of justifying morality -- Why the Enlightenment project of justifying morality had to fail -- Some consequences of the failure of the Enlightenment project -- 'Fact', explanation and expertise -- The character of generalizations in social science and their lack of predictive power -- Nietzsche or Aristotle? -- The virtues of heroic societies -- The virtues of Athens -- Aristotle's account of the virtues -- Medieval aspects and occasions -- The nature of the virtues -- The virtues, the unity of a human life and the concept of a tradition -- From the virtues to virtue and after virtue -- Justice as a virtue: changing conceptions -- After virtue: Nietzsche or Aristotle, Trotsky and St. Benedict

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